On Duty for Uncle Sam

Though fully armed, and with a good heart, my knight's quest has been a bit of a chore. Still, at least it's not a bore.

Like Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe, I have no war house nor suit of armor to speak of... Or do I? 

That's right, you mealy mouthed simps: the "Male Trailing Spouse" has gone back to being a rowdy squaddie in a foreign field that is forever Aldershot. All the bad habits are back online. Weightlifting. Gun-toting. Smoking. Drinking. Retro 1970s sexism. Yep. The whole battle rattle. Surely, aged 52.11, I'm old enough to know better?  No. Of course not, you silly billy.

As per doing your duty... lemme spell it out.... so even a lime juicer or WHATEVER in WHEREVER can unnerstannit... What did YOU do during the great Coronavirus pandemic of 2020?  Share memes n'shit? Watch Tiger King on "lockdown"? The Male Trailing Spouse was on SAD: that's State Active Duty. Mobile and static Covid-19 testing. Decontaminating residential care homes dressed as a Planter's Peanut with NO FUCKING VACCINE in sight. Back in uniform and on duty for the end of the world... I wouldn't want it any other way... 

WHOOPS APOCALYPSE! What's at the root of this duty, duty, duty? (Best said aloud, in a Cary Grant voice). To the outsider, I'm just a weekend character, but, in actual fact, I'm Sir Kenneth, "of the Couchant Leopard", from Sir Walter Scott's 1825 novel, The Talisman. I.E. a humble knight in a savage land (the USA in lieu of Palestine.) Yea, to live by the deeds and virtues of knighthood is as barmy today as it was in the fictional landscape of Cervantes and his comic creation, Don Quixote. Fiction. Fantasy. Yet how does one tilt at windmills as a Chevalier Deguise (a functioning man-child) in this day and age? On the face of it, much like Don Quixote, you would be taken for mad, and rightly so. For this is the age of the minstrel and the jester. And knights?  Chivalry? Fools and falsehoods from a bygone age. 

I SAY THEE NAY! Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, said the learned figure of Dr. Johnson way back in 1778. And yet, in our time, every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a property developer or a hedge fund manager. Suffice to say, when someone of a certain station enters into the noble trade of soldiering, they are almost always taken for a blithering idiot by peers and other familiars. And yet it's these very same blokes, the chancers on the 9-5, reading thrillers at bedtime; they're the ones who think meanly of themselves for not having been a solider. Innit shame.

Nah. I pity the poor deluded fools. They're better off in their warm beds or on the Tube back and forth to pleb in the City. Yes, for there is nothing remotely glam about military life. Early starts. Cold mornings. Wet skies. Long days (and nights.) Shit blocking food. Crap pay. Poor housing. Shoddy equipment. And, last but by no means least, taking orders from people who are your social, intellectual and physical inferior. Yes, folks. Military service ain't for everybody.

Why? Simple: the life of a soldier is invariably poor. This struck home 20 years ago in London, when the old trench rats of the Regimental Association came in for their annual Friday night piss up down at the Sgt's Mess. "Look at the medals on that geezer," said the battle buddy. My optics, however, were locked on the raggedy, 1980s powder blue suits and shiny, new Zimmer frames. Would this be me in 30, 40 years, not dying but fading?

Military service has always been seen as a bit weird in England. It might have something to do with our historical aversion to a huge standing army that could be used against its own subjects (like Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army of the 1640s). And, rather like the police force, you get three types of civil servant in the armed services: (1) Those who like the power, uniform and authority (2) Those who can't do anything else (3) Those who actually care. It's an occupation that attracts all types, of all backgrounds, but with one thing in common: they will have your back in a jam and vice versa. If I was a financial analyst in the City, I'd be surrounded by long knives waiting to plunge into the vitals. Now that's a bit weird, innit?      

"There are no second acts in American lives", said the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. But what about us outsiders, looking for a second act? We get what the natives don't. In my case, a return to being a "weekend character". I thought I'd kissed all of that mularkey goodbye when HMG posted us to Bangkok, Thailand, in 2003. Golly gosh! 19 years an expatriate. I seem to recall some learned counsel from the FCDO "Welcome to Bangkok guide" about doing shit to fit in at post. Rather than get sloshed at the bar of the Foreign Correspondents Club with the rest of the hacks, I "learned meself" the lingo, became a Theravada Buddhist monk and a nak muay farang. In the USA, on the other hand, I bought a house, an AR-15, and returned to part-time soldiering after a 17-year absence. How's that for a second act? Go figure.

Now I'm a legal soldier in a legitimate military organization. This binds me to behavioral standards and codes of conduct that I would not be otherwise bound as a US citizen. And, once again, in a field far from home, I have been granted a special trust by the nation state. That means that I have to conduct myself with dignity and humility. Knighthood does not make me better than my fellow Americans, just different, because I have undertaken a responsibility to serve. So sleep safely tonight, because rough men such as myself stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.